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Caregivers need supports

Thu., April 25, 2013

Re: Goar: Help for overwhelmed caregivers, April 19

Goar: Help for overwhelmed caregivers, April 19

Like family caregivers of people with dementia, those of us who care for people with psychotic disorders have similar struggles. Our retirement plans are put aside, we experience financial hardship, and we become emotionally spent. No one prepares us for the wide array of bizarre behaviours, and like those caring for people with dementia, we figure out our own strategies.

Since psychosis and dementia are both brain diseases where the ill person loses contact with reality, I wonder why we who care for those with psychotic disorders cannot have similar support.

Since the deinstitutionalization of hospital mental health services, family caregivers of people with serious mental illness have shouldered most of the responsibility of care and have become the default mental health system..

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Furthermore, we often do our work in isolation, coping with discrimination and unrealistic privacy legislation that could potentially put us and our ill relative in harm’s way.

Kathy Mochnacki, Richmond Hill

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